Dana sighed over the phone and dissipated the fog so that the helicopter could see to land.
“Yes, I know there is an unnatural fog here. I created it and I am dissipating it now. They will be able to land in under a minute.” She was explaining over the phone.
“I will send Karl out to flag them down with a torch, that should be pretty recognizable, right?
Yes, we prepared for a power outage, should the monsters be smart enough to cut the main power.
You’re not all that bright either, but you’re right here on the phone with me, aren’t you? Don’t underestimate the monsters.”
Karl laughed as he grabbed a pole and tied a rag around it, then dunked it in the grease and lit it up. The torch created a bright flame with thick black smoke as the excess grease burned, but it was impossible to miss in the rapidly thinning fog.
The helicopter didn’t land, it just dropped a group of ropes, and a team of men in black uniforms with rifles in hand dropped into the town square and formed a defensive ring. They seemed a bit too paranoid by Karl’s estimation, they should have been informed that the threat was already gone, but they seemed to take their jobs very seriously.
“Academy warrior Karl?” The team leader shouted over the noise of the helicopter.
“That’s me. The helicopter can land over there, we already cleared the town, so there shouldn’t be any more Goblins here.” Karl shouted back.
Instead of landing, the helicopter moved to a higher altitude and away from the landing zone, flying in a circle around the town, presumably looking for more threats.
“Let’s get you to safety. Where is the mage?” The team leader asked.
“Inside. But as I’ve told you, it’s already safe. Look around you, there are no more living Goblins.” Karl repeated.
The team leader hustled him back inside, but most of the team remained outside the building, searching the square, which was covered in dead Goblins from an evening of battle.
“I need you to put your index finger on the scanner for me.” The team leader insisted, and Karl complied, scanning his identity the same way he had a thousand times before, clocking in and out of the mines for his after school shifts.
[Identity verified. Golden Divine Academy Elite student, Karl. Awakened ranking assessment under review pending formal exam.]
The man looked between his identity scanner and Karl, then at Dana and back again with a surprised expression.
“See, we told the guy on the phone what was happening, but it looks like nobody actually believed it. You are welcome to explore the town, though. It will still need to be swept to make sure that there isn’t anything hiding in the houses that we didn’t detect, and someone will have to clean up all the Goblin bodies in the streets. I’m reasonably sure that’s not part of our job description.” Karl explained.
“There are more coming. We were scrambled in advance from the base when we got the report that there were some kids pretending to be elites in the town, but they were already scheduled to be dispatched here to clear the village and find the Goblins.
It should be two hundred men, so they can scour a town this size on their own. Now that we have determined that you two are who you say you are, is there any coffee?” The team leader replied.
“Right here. There is a free coffee maker in the lunchroom. We weren’t sent with overnight supplies, so we owe a couple of people for a lunch, but other than that, everything in the building is still mostly intact.” Karl informed him with a smile.
“Oh, that’s an easy fix. You don’t have them yet, as you’re still students, but once you graduate you’ll get a code generator app for your phones. Just write out the redemption code for anything that you need to use in the line of service, and they can apply for reimbursement from the government. I will put in for it today, it will make their overall damage claim easier to process with one preapproval code in place.”
The team leader grabbed a couple of napkins from the counter, and wrote down a string of numbers and letters on each of them before stuffing them into the empty lunchboxes. Then Dana put them back in the fridge where they found them, and the rest of the team started to enter the building.
“Sir, the area is clear. No sign of life anywhere in the area. We will secure the building now.” One of the soldiers informed them in an extra serious tone.
“You can relax, they’re real elites from the Academy, not kids playing pretend where they shouldn’t be. I’m not sure why we didn’t get the message, but when they say that they killed off the Goblins, I believe them.” The team leader informed his men, who began removing their face masks and lining up at the coffee machine.
“Best news I’ve heard all day. I can’t believe we got chased out of bed at five in the morning because some pencil pusher didn’t know what to do with Academy Elites who don’t have an authorization code yet.” One of the men grumbled.
The team leader set his mug down and nodded in agreement.
“You have to understand, they’re minimum wage assistants. The ones who answer the phone, that is. They live off the minimum subsidy for Elites, and answer the phones at the call centre for elites and government officials, but they’re not Elites themselves. They don’t have much else, so they like to go on a power trip at work.
Just give them your student ID number the next time they ask, and it will automatically transfer you to one of us. Their job is to deal with local bureaucrats requesting assistance, but when we call, they’re just the receptionist.
I’m assuming that the two of you are starting your final year, preparing to go into the military?” The team leader asked.
“Actually, we’re in our first year, and they were preparing her to become an Idol. We are both in the practical skills special class, since we’re a bit ahead of most, and they sent us here for training without any explanation.
I would assume that they thought that there was still someone here to greet us, since the town was evacuated only a few hours before our arrival, but it is what it is. The situation is dealt with now.”